Cue For Murder

Chapter Seven. Character Part

THE CAPRI RESTAURANT is on West 44th Street. As Basil passed the Royalty Theatre its dark masonry, impressive in artificial glare, looked dingy and corrupt in the clean sunlight. Several idlers were staring at the dead electric bulbs that still proclaimed:

OPENING TONIGHT

WANDA MORLEY in FEDORA

Already the wind had torn a strip loose from one of the posters that displayed a sketch of Wanda. Like a pennant it flapped and rippled in the breeze. The box office was closed. There was no sign of life about the theater. A sturdy policeman paced the sidewalk and urged the idlers to move on.

Basil paused as he came to the alley. Like the playhouse, it was disenchanted by daylight. Now he saw that it was a blind alley blocked by the rear of another big theater building. Fire escapes at either end were linked by long balconies of wrought iron at each landing. Had the iron work been only a little lacier—more fanciful—it would have brought to mind back alleys of New Orleans.

Basil surveyed the fire escape of the Royalty at his right. Would he have had the nerve to climb it last night had he been able to see how high it went? All the ironwork was coated with a thick crust of black dust that at the slightest touch flaked off fine and powdery—“the dust of generations,” Pauline had said. Basil lifted his eyes. The tangled cluster of skyscrapers against the pure blue of the sky were as gray and bleak as bald mountain tops. He could see part of the Tilbury building from this point, but another skyscraper barred his view of the clock. He did not envy air-raid wardens their job of deciding which building was in which street if ever they had to enforce a real blackout.

Last night Basil had assumed that the alley could only be entered through 44th Street. Now he realized there were five other ways of entering or leaving it—the two fire escapes of the two theaters, their respective stage doors, and the kitchen door of the cocktail bar.

A slight noise drew Basil’s attention to the shack halfway down the alley. A man had just come out of it into the alley, and he was struggling to close the door against the wind.

Basil approached him. “Mr. Lazarus?”

“Yes?” The man looked at him sidewise. Like the mother of François Villon, he was “little and old and poor.” But his voice was surprisingly round and resonant—the voice of an actor.

“My name is Willing. I happened to read something in the papers about a burglar breaking into your workshop.”

“Yes?” Lazarus was cautiously noncommittal.

“I couldn’t help being interested. According to the newspapers, the burglar stole nothing; yet he released a canary from its cage. Newspaper reports are often careless and inaccurate. Is that what really happened? Or did the reporter color the story to suit his fancy?”

Lazarus considered. “You are from the police?”

“No. I’m attached to the District Attorney’s office, but this is not official. I’m just curious.”

“So.” Lazarus lost some of his caution. “After what happened at the theater last night I shouldn’t think anyone would be worrying about my burglary! It happened just the way the paper said. So far as I could see nothing was stolen. And the canary was set free.”

“May I see the canary?”

“Why not?” Lazarus unlocked the door he had just locked. Basil followed him inside. The shack was so tiny that there was hardly room for two men as well as the big grindstone and the chair in front of it. Shelves against the wall were piled with scissors, knives, and saws, all dull, many rusty. There was also a portable radio, an oil lamp, a glass, and a pitcher of water.

“From the cocktail bar,” explained Lazarus as his glance followed Basil’s. “They are very kind about letting me use their washroom, and the bartender often brings me sandwiches for my luncheon. You see, I don’t live here. I have a room uptown. I did have a wagon when I was younger, but all my customers are theater people in this neighborhood, and when I got older I began to think: “Why not have a workshop and stay in one place? So I sold the wagon, and here I am.”

“You were lucky to find such a suitable place,” said Basil.

Lazarus smiled wisely. “Sam Milhau built me this shack when he bought the Royalty Theatre. His father and I were friends years ago in Posen where we were born. In those days I was an actor too. In Warsaw I played Hamlet once—in Polish. But now . . .” He smiled. “I call Sam Dives, because, you see, I am Lazarus—almost a beggar and always at his gate. But it is better than one of those homes for old actors. Here I am free and independent. I pay my own way—all I get from Sam is this shack, rent free. I have work to do, and I hear all the theatrical gossip when stage people bring me their knives and scissors. And when they don’t, I have my own tenor to sing to me!”

Smiling, he turned toward the cage.

It was made of brass wire, roomy and clean. There were the usual wooden perches and swinging trapeze; the usual white porcelain cups of seed and water fitted into the wire at either end, and a bit of cuttlefish bone for sharpening a small beak. On the shelf near by was a bird bathtub and a package of bird seed.

Eyes like tiny jet beads blinked at Basil from a ball of yellow feathers. Frail, pink claws curled around the central perch.

“Half asleep now,” said Lazarus. “But he’s lively in the early morning when the eastern sun comes through the window. He sings nicely then. Imitates the radio if it’s turned on. He always joins in when I get Bach, but he doesn’t like modern music.”

“A discriminating bird,” Basil was amused. “What’s his name?”

“Dickie.”

This was disappointing—like meeting a dachshund called Hans or an Aberdeen terrier named Mac-something.

“When I passed your window last night I happened to look in, but I didn’t see Dickie. Was he here?”

“Yes, but the cage was covered with burlap so he would sleep from sunset to sunrise. I always do that when I work late by artificial light.”

“Why do you keep the bird here instead of at home?”

“My ‘home’ is a room on a court with no sun. I’m only there at night when Dickie should be asleep. It never occurred to me that anyone would break in and molest him if he were left here alone at night.”

“The cage seems comfortable.” Basil surveyed the freshly sanded floor, the clean water cup, the full seed cup. “Have you any idea why anyone should want to let a bird out of a nice cage like this?”

“No, I haven’t,” admitted Lazarus. “I was puzzled by the whole thing.”

“You’re sure nothing was stolen?”

“There’s nothing of value here—unless it is the radio. It wasn’t taken, and I couldn’t find anything else missing. I can’t imagine why anyone would break in at all. You can tell from the outside of the shack that there’s nothing worth stealing here.”

The bird was awake now. He hopped up to his trapeze, and his weight swung it gently back and forth like a pendulum. “Cheep?” he demanded with a rising inflection.

“Hello, Dickie,” said Lazarus, conversationally.

“Cheep!” responded the bird in exactly the tone of a human being responding: Hello there yourself!

Basil’s glance wandered to the grindstone. “Do you think it possible that someone could have used your stone to sharpen something—say a knife?”

Lazarus grew interested. “It’s possible. I hadn’t thought of that. If I had, I would have examined the stone more carefully when I first discovered the burglary yesterday morning. Of course, it’s too late now. I used it myself last night and this morning. But why should anyone take all the risk and trouble of burgling a shop in order to sharpen a knife? My prices are not high!”

“Suppose this person didn’t want any witnesses to his possession of the knife.”

“So. We’ll never know now.” Lazarus smiled at the bird. “Only Dickie can tell us what the burglar did, and he’s not talking. You should come back on Christmas Eve at midnight when all animals are supposed to talk!”

Standing before the cage, Lazarus whistled the opening bars of the Unfinished Symphony. Dickie took up the strain and repeated it. Then he added some frills of his own and wandered off into a maze of musical improvisation.

“That bird!” exclaimed Lazarus fondly. “He is like the man who wanted to finish the Unfinished Symphony! He cannot let well enough alone! Once I had a steam kettle here, and he used to sing with it whenever the water boiled. Once when I was ill he spent a few days in Sam’s office, and when he came back, what do you think he did? Made a little clack-clack-clack sound in his throat like a typewriter!”

“Could a scalpel be sharpened on your grindstone?”

“Ah! I begin to understand you, Dr. Willing!” No man could have been as wise as Lazarus looked when he smiled. “You think my burglary and what happened at the theater last night are all one crime?”

“We know the scalpel was sharpened somewhere. It belonged to Rodney Tait, and he admits that it was blunt a few days ago.”

“But why?” Lazarus’ face grew sober. “The murderer could have bought a knife already sharp.”

“And left a record of the sale.”

“He could have taken this scalpel to a knife-grinder far away—in some suburb or neighboring city.”

“And left a record of the transaction, just as he would if he had bought a grindstone. An ordinary whetstone would not have done. The knife was large.

“Could the police trace the purchase of a grindstone so easily?”

“That’s the sort of thing they’re particularly good at. There are many of them, and they are all dogged, patient, and trained. They would question every shopkeeper who sells grindstones for miles around, if they thought they could trace a murderer that way. But this way there is no clue to the person who wanted to sharpen the scalpel except the fact that he or she set your canary free. If it hadn’t been for Dickie, the burglary would never have got in the papers. It would have attracted so little attention, it might never have been connected with the murder at all.”

“If it hadn’t been for Dickie, I might never have known there was a burglary, and I might never have reported it to the police!” cried Lazarus. “It was only when I saw the door of the cage open and Dickie flying around the room that I noticed the broken window latch and realized someone must have been in here.”

“That makes it more curious than ever.” Basil frowned. “Could the wind have blown open the window and then the cage door?”

“It might blow the window open but not the cage door. Try it for yourself.”

Dickie fluttered his wings and retreated to the farthest corner of the cage as a strange face approached him. Basil tugged at the door of the cage and opened it with some difficulty. The latch was stiff. “No, it wasn’t the wind,” he said as he closed it again. “You’re sure you latched it when you left for the night?”

“Oh, yes, I remember that clearly. Dickie had moulted a feather, and it got caught in the hinge. I pulled it out and latched the door very carefully.”

Basil surveyed the rest of the shack. “You’re sure there were no clues of any kind when you first came in yesterday morning?”

“None whatever,” answered Lazarus. “But there is one thing: it must have been someone who knew this neighborhood. Only the people around here know my shop.”

“Unfortunately all our suspects are familiar with this neighborhood, so that doesn’t help at all.” Basil sighed. “So far, there is just one clue to your burglar’s identity.”

“What?”

“The canary was let out of his cage. Why? There must have been a reason, and that reason is a clue.”

“But, heavens, what could it be?”

“I don’t know. The cage is large, clean, and comfortable. There seems no reason for it at all. And yet it was done, and everything that a human being does has the motive power of some reason or emotion back of it, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be done.”

“But sometimes people do things for no reason at all,” ventured Lazarus. “A whim . . . a caprice . . .”

Basil smiled. “Do you dislike modern psychology as much as modern music? In modern psychology even a whim is supposed to have a motive. Even an involuntary act, like stammering or stumbling, and a neurotic act, like sleep-walking, is supposed to have some motive, even though the neurotic or the stammerer himself does not know what makes him do such things. Your burglar moved his arm and hand and fingers to unlatch the door of the cage and pull it open. The latch is stiff, and it takes quite a lot of muscular effort to get it open. Muscles just can’t be set in motion unless there is some emotional spark plug in brain and nerves to start them off. Whether that action was rational or whimsical, there must have been some emotional impulse behind it. In some way, for some reason, it gave him or her satisfaction to get that bird out of its cage. If only we could discover why, we would have a clue to the identity of the murderer.”

Basil’s earnestness seemed to impress Lazarus. “Could it have been cruelty?” he suggested. “A bird that is used to being caged is often bewildered when it is set free suddenly. Such a bird may injure its wings or legs attempting to fly around an unfamiliar room with unused wings.”

Basil pondered a moment, then shook his head. “If it were cruelty, wouldn’t the bird have been injured? Or at least let out the window into the night where the cold or a dog or cat or another bird might have killed it?”

“That sounds reasonable. But—” Lazarus smiled his wise smile. “If this burglar is a murderer you are surely not suggesting that he or she was moved by compassion? A sentimentalist might take pity on a caged bird and imagine it would be happier if it were free. But a man or woman who kills with a knife in cold blood is not likely to take pity on a bird!”

“You’ve raised a tricky point,” answered Basil. “It doesn’t seem likely and yet—the most curious thing about human nature is the way people keep their kindness and cruelty in separate, airtight compartments. The Nazi leader, Julius Streicher, who is notoriously sadistic toward his fellow human beings, is said to have wept like a child when his pet canary died. On the other hand, a Spaniard may be kindness itself to his family and friends and yet wallow in the bloody brutalities of the bullfight. In some people cruelty is so impersonal that they will pay a victim good money to submit to a flogging. Perhaps they are more honest than the political, moral, and religious fanatics who only torture others for the most refined ideological reasons. The kind have their cruelties; the cruel, their kindnesses. And both emotions seem to be rigidly canalized by social custom. Though it may not be likely that this murderer took pity on Dickie because he was a caged bird, it is possible.

“Some feeling, conscious or unconscious, guided his hand when it opened the door of that bird cage, but what? We can’t even tell if it was the act of someone who loves canaries . . . or the act of someone who hates canaries . . .”

Lazarus sighed. “In that case, the murderer’s action in freeing Dickie tells you nothing about the murderer at all?”

“I wonder . . .” Basil’s eyes were on the canary. It was trilling happily now as it hopped from perch to trapeze and back again. “I wonder . . .” he repeated softly. “I’m going to give you my address. If you discover anything more about the burglary, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know.”

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